Fundamentalism as a Social Phenomenon

Fundamentalism, involving as it does some ten to twenty million Americans, is obviously a social phenomenon and demands interpretation as such. But the observer who isolates the social dimension has to take special care to be fair-minded, to give something of the participants' point of view. To descend on Fundamentalism from the outside with too many presuppositions about social movements may mean to lose the necessary sense of what animates the movement and inspires loyalty to it.